Abstract:
The primary objective of this study is to connect coronal mass ejections (CMEs) to their source regions, primarily
to create a CME source region catalog, and secondarily to probe the influence that the source regions have on the
different statistical properties of CMEs. We create a source region catalog for 3327 CMEs from 1998 to 2017, thus
capturing the different phases of cycles 23 and 24. The identified source regions are segregated into three classes—
active regions, prominence eruptions, and active prominences—while the CMEs are segregated into slow and fast
groups, based on their average projected speeds. We find the contributions of these three source region types to the
occurrences of slow and fast CMEs to be different in the above period. A study of the distribution of the average
speeds reveals different power laws for CMEs originating from different sources, and the power laws are different
during the different phases of cycles 23 and 24. A study of the statistical latitudinal deflections shows equatorward
deflections, while the magnitudes of the deflections again bear imprints of the source regions. An east–west
asymmetry is also noted, particularly in the rising phase of cycle 23, with the presence of active longitudes for the
CMEs, with a preference toward the western part of the Sun. Our results show that different aspects of CME
kinematics bear strong imprints of the source regions they originate from, thus indicating the existence of different
ejection and/or propagation mechanisms of these CMEs.
